'I felt all this' : enslaved people's emotional lives in the antebellum US South / Beth R. Wilson

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Beth R., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies on Black women in US history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enslaved persons--Southern States--Social life and customs.

Enslaved persons.

Enslaved persons--Southern States--Social conditions.

Enslaved persons--Southern States--Psychology.

Slavery--Social aspects--Southern States.

Slavery.

Slavery--Southern States--Psychological aspects.

Southern States--Race relations--Psychological aspects.

Southern States.

Enslaved persons--Social life and customs.

Enslaved persons--Social conditions.

Enslaved persons--Psychology.

Race relations--Psychological aspects.

Slavery--Social aspects.

Slavery--Psychological aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026

Summary:

"Drawing on methods from the history of emotions to study enslaved people's lives, Beth R. Wilson exposes the social, cultural and political role that emotion played in the US South. Exploring both individual and collective emotions, Wilson shows how enslaved people resisted white people's attempts to restrict their feelings and expressions by developing their own emotional ideals and expectations. Moving through case studies that examine a range of underexplored forms of testimony, the book introduces readers to slave narratives, letters, written interviews and recorded testimony to show that emotion was central to how enslaved people resisted, survived and remembered the system of slavery. Enslaved people's descriptions of their individual experiences of love, pain, grief and joy are woven throughout this study, which provides a framework that historians can use to paint a nuanced, detailed and empathetic picture of the complex emotional impact of slavery"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

Romantic and maternal emotion in formerly enslaved women’s nineteenth-century autobiographies

Family love and networks of affection in enslaved people’s letters

Collective styles of emotional expression in WPA and Fisk interviews

Emotional memories of labour and violence in 1930s oral histories

The archival afterlives of enslaved people’s emotional testimonies

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed June 5, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Wilson, Beth R. 'I felt all this'

ISBN:

9781009709439

1009709437

OCLC:

1592919284

Publisher Number:

CIPO000385716

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license